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October 27, 1997, Section: News & Analysis

SecurIT Locks Out Hackers -- Firewall offers an added layer of protection

By Rutrell Yasin

Milkyway Networks this week will attempt to give IT managers a bulletproof Windows NT firewall.

Instead of placing a firewall on top of a standard NT kernel and using patches to plug security holes, Milkyway decided to remove the NT TCP/IP stack and replace it with a "hardened" stack that plugs up several security holes in the NT operating system.

An application-level firewall, SecurIT Firewall 4.0 for Windows NT, lets users detect and disable port scanning, prevent IP spoofing and guard against SYN flood attacks, according to Ian Ferguson, president of Milkyway.

The hardened stack, based on Milkyway's Black Hole technology, may be attractive to users concerned with vulnerabilities in the NT architecture, said analysts.

With NT there is a brand-new security architecture that has had very little raw testing on the Internet, said Jude O'Reilley, an analyst at the Gartner Group. "Everyone knows Unix has problems. But everyone suspects NT has problems and then 10 new ones show up," he said.

"The stack question is interesting because the stack is where the operating system is exposed to the network. It's the single greatest point of entry for an attack, " O'Reilley explained. The fact that Milkyway is a network security vendor, rather than an operating system vendor, may give some users a level of comfort, he said.

"I think Milkyway has gone a long way in minimizing exposure to vulnerabilities, but the jury is still out until the firewall is in the hands of users," O'Reilley said.

Still, Milkyway officials believe the hardened stack will be a key differentiator. "We're the only one with a real hardened stack. The others leave the NT stack in place and are wedging pieces in" to plug up holes, Ferguson said.

SecurIT also packs a policy engine that will let administrators define security rules based on their company's security policy. Available now, pricing ranges from $1,900 to $14,500.